Vietnamese born American Ly Tong was arrested in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, on August 25 after hijacking a training plane to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

On August 25, Ly Tong, an air force veteran of the former puppet government in Southern Vietnam, hired a two-seat training plane for a tour. A few minutes after the plane took off, he asked the pilot to change the direction to the DPRK to distribute leaflets.

Reasoning that it was a small plane, the pilot asked for a landing to receive more fuel while secretly sending out a SOS signal to the air control station at Seoul airport. Ly Tong was arrested by the airport’s security force.

In 1998, Ly Tong used an aircraft to illegally fly to the Cuban airspace to circulate leaflets. Six years earlier, he hijacked a Vietnam Airlines aircraft en route to Ho Chi Minh City for the same purpose, and was then arrested by the Vietnamese authorities.

When former US President Bill Clinton visited Vietnam in November 2000, Ly Tong hired a tourist aircraft from Thailand and asked the pilot to fly to Ho Chi Minh City to distribute anti-government leaflets. He was arrested upon his return to Thailand and was sentenced to six years in prison for hijacking.